‘What I’m doing is affecting me…’
Following in the wake of his passing in August of 2023, there has been a rush to deify director William Friedkin, particularly his work on The French Connection and The Exorcist. Many luminaries of film criticism (Mark Kermode chief among them) have taken this opportunity to reflect on some of Friedkin’s lesser-known work. As a result of this, there has been a lot of talk about his 1980 thriller Cruising. I’m here to add to the cacophony of noise surrounding this movie. It’s essential viewing…
An unknown serial killer is attacking gay men in New York City at the tail end of the ’70s. Beleaguered and running out of ideas, police captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) persuades a young detective (Al Pacino) to go undercover to the underground of S&M gay subculture in order to catch the assailant. This causes friction with Pacino’s girlfriend Nancy (Karen Allen).
Along with Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese, Friedkin was one of the leading lights of the Hollywood Brats generation. A rough collective of filmmakers who ripped up the rulebook and changed Hollywood forever. Despite coming a number of years after Friedkin’s initial success, Cruising is still vibrant and daring cinema. Its representation of gay subculture, whilst problematic in today’s context, was revolutionary at the time, and Friedkin takes an unflinching approach to the sordid subject matter.
This is not just about Friedkin, however. Pacino delivers an exceptional performance in the lead role despite the fact that Friedkin always maintained that he should have gone with Richard Gere instead. This is the Italian-American actor as you have never seen him. Naive, vulnerable but with that undercurrent of toughness that Pacino couldn’t shed even if he tried. It’s a hypnotic turn from one of Hollywood’s greatest-ever performers.
Picketed by gay rights groups and requiring 40 minutes of cuts to receive an R rating, Cruising is not an easy watch, but it still feels fresh and innovative even all these years later. Landmark filmmaking.